


I know I said that I'm too scared to try (but I still think about you)

by iwantthemtostay



Series: baby, let's take the long way home [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Step-siblings, throwback week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 16:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19066435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantthemtostay/pseuds/iwantthemtostay
Summary: “At, uh, Charlie and Nicole’s wedding? You told me you were sorry, and that you hoped I’d feel better soon and… you might have said you could make me feel better for while at least? Or I might have made that up. Did we make out in a supply closet that night?”(They did.)





	I know I said that I'm too scared to try (but I still think about you)

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of stories I would have loved to throwback to, but this pulled at me the most and I knew it was a little snippet some people would like to see.
> 
> Thanks to only_because3 for talking me up and down, and to awakeanddreaming and lolohannah for all their title help! 
> 
> Work title from [Gimmie Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyJguuedzZ0)

_July 2008_

Tessa’s legs hurt. 

This isn’t a new development. At all. It’s dogged her for months now, this pain that can be shards of glass, or spindle pricks, or fire underneath her skin. She’s tried to describe it in so many different ways, hoping that this will be the one that gets the severity across. For so long she’d tried to dance through it, but then she realised that she could be cutting off her career. She needs her legs, needs them more than anything. And now she has her diagnosis, and a tentative operation date, and some fancy painkillers. And, for one day only, she has another type of pain to distract her. A rather specific, unique type, much rarer than compartment syndrome. She’s not sure what pills they prescribe for dealing with seeing the stepbrother you lost your heart (and virginity) to at the wedding of one of the stepbrothers you see as an actual brother. Alcohol doesn’t seem the worst idea. 

She takes a sip of the champagne Nicole has sent from the bridal suite and fixes her hair one last time. It’s going to be fine. She can do this. She’s seen him over the past few days and it’s been fine, and last year too, after her nana passed away. 

(Except that it’s only been fleeting moments - he got back only two days before the wedding because he’s been so busy with the move to train in Detroit, and Tessa has been so busy making sure that everything is perfect for the ceremony and reception. Last year it had been fleeting too, but the simple words he said reverberated in her ears and her hand had tingled where he’d grasped it. So maybe it’s not fine. Maybe she can’t do this. But she will.)

Jordan comes out of the bathroom and claps her hands. “Okay! Let’s do this!” 

Tessa puts on her best smile and locks her arm around her sister’s. “Are Mom and the boys downstairs?” They’d all stayed in the hotel last night, leaving the Moir home in Ilderton for the Moirs, including Alma who’d slept there for the first time since the divorce. Tessa thinks it’s nice that they could do that all together. She can’t see that happening for any of her siblings.

Jordan nods, pausing just as they’re about to leave the bedroom. She turns around and places her hands on Tessa’s shoulders. “No fucking your step-brother tonight. That’s not what people mean by a family wedding.” Tessa breathes heavily, trying not to bite her lip and smudge the Mac Dream lipstick she’d so carefully applied. She needs to look perfect today. Jordan shrugs, laughing a little like the joke she’s about to tell is too funny even for her. “Though Danny is pretty cute. I might let that one slide.” 

“Jordan!” Tessa gasps, horrified. “He’s my _step-brother_ , practically my brother!” 

Her sister’s eyes widen while her mouth contorts. “And so’s Scott?!” 

“Not like that.” Not like that at all. Scott has always been… Scott, while Danny and Charlie are the two extra older brothers she really didn’t think she needed. But she has needed them these past few weeks when she’s spent most of her time in Ilderton. She’s pretty sure Nicole and Charlie only asked her help with the wedding to take her mind of her legs and not being able to go to Paris with the rest of the company. All the Moirs have been so good to her, all with that same kindness Scott has. Though she still misses his. But she’s not going to think about that.

“Well anyway, just be careful okay? Don’t drink too much and do something you’ll regret.” 

She hates it when Jordan scolds her. If there’s anyone she’s worried about drinking too much and doing something they’ll regret it’s her older sister. Tessa thinks that after a whiskey sour too many her secret might slip from Jordan’s lips onto anyone who’s waiting around’s ears. It’s the sinking feeling that idea puts in her gut that makes her know she won’t do anything reckless with Scott tonight. This day isn’t about their past, it’s about Charlie and Nicole’s present. Tessa isn’t going to let anything get in the way of that. 

In the end she just nods and guides Jordan out the door and down the elevator to where their family is waiting in the lobby. 

It’s a noisy car ride, too busy for her to dwell on things what with her mom fussing over whether her fascinator is sitting right while Kevin nags Casey about when he’s going to get married. It’s almost a relief to get out into the fresh air at the church, but then her heart rate picks up when she sees all the Moirs congregating outside, Scott in the centre of them. He’s hugging his skating partner, Alexandra, who looks gorgeous as always in a pale blue dress. It’s the first time Tessa has seen them together in person, but she’s been seen them on tape. More and more recently as she’s taken to sneaking down to the basement where the old video player and all the cassettes are, watching him as he is now in the place where he was once hers. They’re beautiful together, she thinks, moving with an ease and grace across the ice. It probably shouldn’t remind her of that evening they’d skated together, it’s a world apart from that, but it does. She can smell the ice and feel his hand on her hip and his lips on hers, the heat chasing the cold. She wishes they’d had more times like that. She wishes they’d had more time. 

Jordan gives her a sideways hug, squeezing her tight. “You okay?” she whispers. There’s no joking about now, just concern. 

“I will be.” If she thinks it hard enough maybe it just might come true. Not that that had worked with no one finding out about her and Scott.

Alma is the Moir she ends up talking to first, while her mom fixes Joe’s tie and Jordan and her brothers talk to Charlie and Danny. Alma wraps her into a hug and Tessa feels a scratch at the back of her throat. She knows that Alma is aware of what happened that summer, but it’s never been mentioned on the few occasions they’ve met since then, Alma always as kind and welcoming as she’d been that Canada Day at the fair. After the hug she stands back a little, taking Tessa in. “You look beautiful, I love the new hair!”

Tessa’s fingers go straight for the shorter length. She’d gone to get it chopped after she found out she needed surgery, not wanting to even be able to wear it in a bun any longer. Of course she’d messed that up too, she can still pull one together. “I’m not quite used to it yet.” She tugs at the ends a little before returning her hands to her sides. “You look great, Alma.” 

Alma smiles, adjusting her red jacket. “Why thank you, honey.” She squeezes Tessa’s elbow. “I’m going to go find Sam, I’ll talk to you more later, okay?” 

With Alma off to find her partner Tessa is adrift in a midst of Moirs, an unusual feeling now that she usually feels so at home with them. As she’s turning to walk over to Cara and Sheri, Scott looks around from where he’s talking to Alexandra. Their eyes meet for just a second before she switches her gaze down to the ground. She doesn’t want to look at him in his new suit with his older, somehow even more handsome, face and his longer hair (it gives him the appearance of a guy who’d fuck a girl senseless and not call the next day, but Tessa isn’t opposed, it’s still a good look). If she lets her eyes linger on his she won’t be able to tear them away. Scott, and everyone else here, will see everything. How often she thinks of him, how much she still cares, maybe even how angry she is sometimes. She still gets resentful that he never showed up at NBS like she fantasised he would, and it’s so very stupid. She’d begged him not to and he always did whatever he could to make things right for her, to make sure she was comfortable. She’s not comfortable now. 

Tessa plasters on a smile, fixes her dress, and walks over to Scott’s cousins, ignoring the searing strain in her calves. It’s a wedding, it’s a happy day. She’s going to be happy.

Tessa’s legs hurt, but her heart hurts even more. 

*****

Scott’s fucked.

He really didn’t mean to drink this much. He and Alex are back in Canton on Monday and Marina and Igor are serious taskmasters, for starters. And then there's the not making a fool of himself in front of all his relatives. And Tessa. But Tessa being here might also be the reason he's drinking so much so it's a bit of a conundrum. 

She's so beautiful. She looks like a flower or something, peony pink dress, peony pink lips. Or maybe they don't match, maybe they just complement each other. He hasn't been close enough to her to tell. They’d barely looked at each other all day, outside the church she’d avoided even saying hello to him and he couldn’t bring himself to watch her during the service. It’s been different after dinner though. He’s felt her gaze on him and when he’s brought his eyes to meet hers she hasn’t looked away. Only the presence of their parents has made him stop staring. It seems a little like longing in her green eyes, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. It’s been almost three years since things ended, it’s surely more likely that she regrets it all, that she’s embarrassed it happened. Scott only regrets that it ended, that he’d made such a mess of things. He drinks more of his beer. 

Tessa’s been drinking too and it concerns him a little. Not that it’s any of his business, it’s her choice, but he knows she must be on painkillers for her legs and maybe it’s not the greatest of ideas? She looks so pretty like this though, her cheeks flushed as she plays with the ends of her shorter hair, laughing with her sister and her brothers. His brothers too, who keep coming up to her to check in on how she’s doing. She hasn’t been dancing much and it makes Scott sad. Selfishly for himself because he loves to watch her, but more for her. She should get to dance at the wedding she helped plan. 

Alex plops down on the chair beside him, her hair a little messy after the energetic… jig, if he’s being generous, that Danny had been leading her in. “You’re definitely a better dancer than your brother, so I think you should stop with the ‘ugh, I’m such a terrible dancer compared to you’ nonsense.” Scott really hopes he doesn’t actually sound like that. Surely he’s not that whiny.

“I don’t think that’s much of an achievement though.” He looks over to where his eldest brother is now doing the chicken dance while Céline croons about how it’s all coming back to her. “Are you having a good time? I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend the weekend with your family.” Alex has been having a really hard time with the move. He feels bad about keeping her away from them, but he couldn’t not invite her either. 

“It’s okay, I’ve been having fun. And my sisters are coming to stay next week anyway.” Scott has no clue how they’re going to fit them in their apartment, but he thinks it will be good for Alex. 

“I’m keeping you away from Mitch too though, that you must be holding against me,” he teases.

Alex sighs, sounding much too long-suffering considering they’ve only been skating together for two and a half years. “Mitch and I are just friends.” 

“You sent him a photo earlier!” They’re exhausting.

“Because he wanted to see my dress!”

Scott shakes his head. He just doesn’t get why people who can be together aren’t. “You could be more than friends though.”

Alex deflates at his side.. “But what if we were, and then it all went wrong? And then we weren’t friends anymore. Wouldn’t that be worse?”

He rubs her shoulder. “Sorry. You’re right, that would suck.” That wasn’t an issue with him and Tessa, they went from being something like nothing to one another to something like everything. He doesn’t know whether things would have been better if they’d just been friends, they’d still be in each other’s lives, but… they wouldn’t be _them_.

“Your step-sister is a gorgeous dancer,” Alex observes. “What kind of training does she have?”

Scott’s head shoots up. Tessa is waltzing with Danny, who’s singing along very loudly. She still looks perfect somehow, grace in every limb even as his brother awkwardly manoeuvres them. “Uh, not sure really.” Alex loves ballet, had been very good at it herself, and she’d be so excited to learn that Tessa’s a member of the National Ballet. But he doesn’t know how he’d go about introducing them. Alex is much too perceptive not to pick up on how he feels if she saw him and Tessa close together. He doesn’t think ‘sorry Alex, you’re my best friend who I tell everything but whoops my step-sister was my first love’ will go down too well. 

Alex stands back up. “I’m going to get another drink, do you want one?” 

He shakes his head. “No, thanks. I’m going to the bathroom.” He needs to get away from the ballroom, go somewhere quieter where maybe the buzzing in his head and in his blood will calm.

Scott gets talking to one of Nicole’s cousins in the bathroom about whether he’s going to switch his allegiances to the Tigers now that he’s living in Detroit. He’s shouting something back at him as he leaves the room and isn’t looking where he’s going, which makes it all too easy to bump into someone. He reaches out his arms to steady the person, and even if he hadn’t recognised the dress or the cloud of dark hair, he’d have known from the second his hands touched her hips that it was Tessa. He wants to linger there but he takes a step back.

“I’m sorry!” she squeaks.

“No, I’m sorry. I should have been looking where I was going.” He runs his hand through his hair, trying not to notice how she bites her lower lip. “How are you?”

“Oh, fine, and you?” Her eyes dart up and down like she can’t decide whether to look at him or not.

“Fine. Nothing awkward about today at all.” Tessa giggles, a little hysterically. “Are you sure you’re fine though? How are your legs?” He gestures down to them.

Tessa rocks back and forth. “I took some painkillers with dinner. And I’ve been drinking so… Not so bad right now.”

He wants to try and say something to make it better, but there’s nothing to say. He’s not good at this, at trying to talk to her now. He’d tried to say something at her nana’s funeral but she probably doesn’t even remember that. He can recall it so clearly though, the quiet voice in which she thanked him and how his hand had tingled where she’d touched it. “I’m going to head back in now,” he says finally.

“Cool. Great. Good.” Tessa wrings her hands. She opens her mouth and then shakes her head, going away so fast she leaves a draught. 

Scott heads to the bar and orders three shots of tequila, anything so that he doesn’t have to think about what just happened. When the bartender moves away to serve someone else, Scott can see Tessa at the opposite end of the bar, three matching glasses in front of her. Her cheeks go rosy red and then she licks her hand and reaches for the salt. He copies her. They lick the salt off at the same time and he wishes it was her soft hand he was tasting, not his rough one. Tessa shakes her shoulder a little as the tequila makes it way down her throat and he finds himself doing that too, laughing at the way she smiles when she notices. The second shot process takes longer, them both taking their time, and the third one slower again. He can see her pink tongue as it nips out to taste the salt, can almost feel it on his hand. It’s like he’s tasting her when he bites into the lime, the same tart flavour on her lips just across the bar. Even though things have been slowing down it’s almost like they’re going faster too, like this is building towards something. And then Tessa jerks her head to the side, pointing down a corridor, and Scott almost falls off his chair. 

She goes first and he hurries out about thirty seconds later, fast, but not fast enough not to notice Jordan’s eyes bugging out. But there’s enough alcohol in his veins for him not to care about that right now. 

Tessa’s pacing back and forth when he reaches and he can almost feel the wave of relief that rolls off her when she sees him. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “I didn’t say that earlier and I should have.”

“Sorry about what?” she asks, moving closer to him.

“A lot of things. But I meant your legs. I’m sorry they’re hurting, and, uh, I hope the surgery is exactly what you need. I hope you feel better really soon.” It all sounds so inadequate to his ears. Her eyes are soft though, as is her smile. She’s so fucking beautiful and she’s right here, close enough to touch, close enough to kiss. “I could try and make you feel better, for a while at least,” he says, reckless and faux-nonchalant, like this isn’t everything he wants in this moment, in so many moments.

There’s no time to worry about whether he’s overstepped the mark because Tessa is kissing him and it’s salty and sour and sweet and sloppy and there are sparks all over his skin. She grips his hand, so tight that it might bruise, and drags him towards a door, opening it with her elbow. They’re in a supply closet of all places, surround by Lysol in industrial sizes, the air smelling of disinfectant. But it doesn’t feel sterile here, it feels alive, feels explosive. His arms are around Tessa’s back and hers are around his neck and her eyes are gleaming, glimmering green.

“I hope you use these kind of products now that you’re living away from home. You’d better not be making Alexandra do all the cleaning.”

He laughs, so loud that he can feel it vibrate through her back to the palms of his hands which are hot against her. “I help out, I promise.”

“She’s very pretty.” Tessa’s eyes narrow.

“Are you jealous?” He whispers the question into her ear, feels her body shiver in response. 

“Well, you do have previous experience with getting involved with people you live with.”

He lifts his hand from her back, tracing his thumb down her cheek. “Only you. That’s only you.” Her lips aren’t quite the same shade as her dress, duskier he thinks, and the lipstick smudges a little as he rubs his thumb over her lips, inching her bottom lip down just a fraction. “Only ever you.” Tessa’s teeth and then tongue graze the tip of his thumb and then she’s pulling him closer, her hands in his hair and her mouth on his again.

It’s overwhelming - the taste of the tequila, the salt, the lime, the lipstick, the champagne, the Tessa taste that’s only hers. And then there’s her body pressed against his, the curves that aren’t quite the same as the ones he’d loved three summers ago, but are lovelier still. His hands get to know their touch, just as his ears refamililarise themselves with the sound of Tessa’s breathy sighs, the little moans that come from the back of her throat and make their way all over Scott’s body, into the very depths of him. His blood is rushing and he’s hard against her thigh, getting harder as she grinds her hips against his.

“We could go up to my room,” she whispers, though no one else is here to see them. They’re a dirty secret in a cleaning supply closet, a stain on respectability that’s not been removed, just swept out of sight. “Or maybe yours. Jordan is sharing with me.”

He wants to. He wants to so badly. He wants to sink into her and move as one, he wants to see her face when she comes, when he makes her come again and again. In all the ways he had before and all the other ways he can try. But they’re drunk. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Tess. We’re… we’ve both had a lot to drink.”

“I know,” she persists. “But we both have. It’s not like anyone is taking advantage.” She presses herself against him and he groans, wants to hike up her dress right here between shelves of cleaning spray and drain unblocker. 

“Yeah but… If we do this again… I want to remember.” He wants crystal clear detail, not foggy snapshots. The edges are already fading on this moment right now, like it’s not going into his memory the right way.

Her voice is tremulous now, like she’s trying not to cry and it pulls and tears at his heart. “How could I not remember being with you? I can’t forget that, I can’t forget any of it. It’s always there, I can’t get away from it.” 

“Hey, hey.” He wipes the tears now flowing down her cheeks. “It’s like that for me too.” Like she’s lurking under his skin, a part of him now, as sure as ice dance is, as sure as Ilderton.

She kisses him, desperately, trying to claim him as if she hasn’t already. “When will it stop hurting to see you?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs into her hair, trailing kisses over her hairline and then down her cheek until he meets her lips again. He guesses it will stop hurting when she stops caring, and he hates to see her hurting but he wants her to care. 

Their kisses are even messier now, their faces wet and their hands clinging on to one another. He never wants it to end, but he knows they have to stop. They can’t stay here, hidden, forever. Someone is going to miss them, to notice they’re both gone. It ends when he can feel Tessa’s legs tensing, when she’s leaning against him a little too heavily. 

“I should go,” she says, her voice hoarse. 

He kisses her on the cheek. “Do you want to lean on me going up to your room?” 

Tessa sniffles. “Thank you, but I think it’s best I go up alone.” 

He nods, and then Tessa takes his face in her hands and kisses him one last time.

(Except it’s not the last time. But he doesn’t know that yet. Neither of them have any idea that ten years later they’ll be in a cleaning supply closet again, Tessa in a white dress and Scott in a black suit, matching wedding bands on their fingers. It’s only a far-off dream now, a memory not yet made or even imagined. Their time will come again).


End file.
